They were later joined by singer-songwriter Erykah Badu, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, keyboardist James Poyser, singer Bilal, bassist Pino Palladino, rapper-producers Q-Tip and Mos Def, and rappers Talib Kweli and Common.

[4] Their members often collaborated on each other's recordings, holding extensive and innovative sessions at Electric Lady Studios in New York, which produced several well-received albums.

Questlove, D'Angelo, Poyser, and J Dilla came together after discovering they had a common interest for the unconventional—offbeat rhythms, irregular chords, and other traits often exhibited by the underground urban music scene.

The 1995 Source Awards were a pivotal moment in the founding, with the event highlighting tensions within the hip-hop community at the time and featuring a chance encounter between Questlove and D'Angelo.

[7] Also around this time, D'Angelo and Welsh bassist Pino Palladino developed a connection over their mutual love of Motown and other classic soul music.

Organic soul, natural R&B, boho-rap—it's music that owes a debt to the old-school sounds of Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and George Clinton without expressly mimicking any of them.

It refreshes these traditions with cinematic production techniques gleaned from hip-hop and with attitude that is street-smart but above all highly individual, celebrating quirks instead of sanding them down for mass consumption.

), the subject matter on these albums is idiosyncratic and personal, ranging from the spiritual crises of [Lauryn] Hill, D'Angelo and Maxwell to the socio-political concerns of the Roots and Mos Def.

[10]During the late 1990s and early 2000s, members of the collective held jam sessions while recording their respective albums at Electric Lady Studios in New York.

According to music journalist Michael Gonzales, their sessions were marked by an experimentation with "dirty soul, muddy water blues, Black Ark dub science, mix-master madness, screeching guitars, old school hip-hop, gutbucket romanticism, inspired lyricism, African chats and aesthetics, pimpin' politics, strange Moogs, Kraftwerk synths and spacey noise".

The musical approach also influenced the collective's associated musicians, including Mos Def's Black on Both Sides (1999), singer Res's How I Do (2001), and rapper Talib Kweli's Quality (2002).

[1] Bilal held improvisatory jam sessions at the studio for his second album, Love for Sale, but its experimental direction alienated his label from releasing it.

The people at Vibe had a clue that I was working on D'Angelo, Erykah, The Roots, Jill Scott, Bilal, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, Slum Village, and Nikka Costa's records.

[12] Reflecting on the collective's impact since then, Gonzales writes in 2015: Without a doubt, the innovations the Soulquarians put down in that five-year period between 1997 and 2002 became eternal, their spirit still alive inside of us, their sound and vision later manifested into the work of photographers, writers, visual artists, indie directors and of course, musicians and rappers.